A good friend of mine is a Marine Gunnery Sergeant serving in Afghanistan after a couple of tours in Iraq including the Battle of Fallujah. He's been over there since first part of the year and recently received news of his Fathers death so he had to come back to the states for the funeral.
His story started right there. The Marine Corps flew him from the field to an air base in Afghanistan and then were to get him home to the states. Well, they couldn't tell him when he would get out of there and home so, being a Marine he found a way himself. He linked up with some Air Force teams heading to the states, got himself manifested and dropped off in SC where his wife drove a couple hours from NC to pick him up.
Now he is one Gung Ho Marine and wanted to get back to his troops as soon as possible. First he gets a call from his Colonel in Afghan asking him to attend the funeral of one of their own killed that week. He did that in Virginia then called me a couple weeks ago while driving to Bethesda to see another Marine from their outfit who lost both legs above the knee and most of his fingers.
We talked and he told me he was going to go to Andrews Air Base and hitch a ride (think about that) back to Afghanistan and work his way to his outfit fighting there. The Marines it seemed hadn't worked out his return yet? He said he'd have his wife drop him off at Andrews when he got the time worked out. I guess they fly daily to Afghanistan. That would make sense since there is a war there.
So I thought he was gone, worked his way back there two weeks ago. Yesterday I heard from him and it is a classic, or priceless as they say on TV. He had his phone shut off because of course he was leaving. The Air Force had his wifes phone but apparently no one to dial the number. My friend rented a car and drove from NC to DC only to find out the flight was postponed for a day. But it actually wasn't, he drove back up to find that it had left on schedule, he had just missed it.
Now he is back to relying on the Marine Corps to get him back to his unit, we are at war aren't we? He is really wanting to get back, that's what Marines do. They schedule him on a flight due out last Monday via Delta Airlines? Now what the heck is Marines doing on Delta? Anyway he came in from NC and went to get his bag with all his military stuff inside only to have the nice attendant at Delta informed him his bag had went to San Diego.
She assured him they could have it to him in 24 hours but he mentioned his final destination was eventually Afghanistan and he doubted Delta could deliver there. He had no choice but to return home, since he was missing another connection, and when he got home he had a message on his wife's phone from the Marine Corps saying he 'might not be going back' - which when you think about it would have been real timely had Delta not lost his bags and he connected.
Who exactly is running that show? We have all this great young men like my dear friend who are willing to go and lay it all on the line for our country and then they get treated like this ... makes one wonder? And this is the government who wants to bring us health care!
Long story short. I now leave this Tuesday! The war will be over by the time I get back. I guess if anyone would appreciTe this kind of shit it would be you.
Semper,
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